He's Hot, He's Sexy, He's Undead

Part of the problem is that gossip abhors a vacuum, and for all intents and purposes, Pattinson didn't exist as a public figure until he was cast in Twilight; his celebrity is a movie tie-in product, like the Edward action figure or Twilight, the perfume (smells like "lavender and freesia"—as for what freesia smells like, you're on your own).

For what it's worth: He grew up in London. His mom worked for a modeling agency, his dad was a luxury-car importer. He did some modeling as a kid, some amateur theater, some British TV, took a break from a fancy prep school to do Harry Potter. There's so little to know about him that everything he says now becomes hyperimportant, data to be gospelized. A reporter asks him something stupid about his hair, he makes a dumb joke about never washing it, and suddenly his clip file grows fat with stories about his deplorable personal hygiene. Sometimes he doesn't even have to say anything. People make stuff up.

"There's literally not a single [true] story that could be written about me," he says. "I never do anything."

We ask him to cite an example of something untrue that's been written about him.

Annelyse's last name is Schoenberger; after she was spotted with Pattinson at a Kings of Leon concert last October, aggrieved R-Patts fans accused her, on the Internet, of having an "alien face."

But c'mon, we say to Pattinson. We ask you to deny something and you give us the Brazilian model? That's the celebrity-relationship-denial equivalent of claiming you have a girlfriend in Canada. Did you really propose to Kristen Stewart every day while shooting Twilight?

"I said that in some interview, as a joke—'Oh, I proposed to her multiple times.' And then it gets printed: 'On the set, he proposed multiple times.' "

(Later we ask Stewart about this: "He probably proposes to several girls a day," she says, bone-drily. "It's sort of his thing. He thinks it's cute.")

Okay. What about the love triangle between you, Camilla Belle, and Joe Jonas from the Jonas Brothers?

He starts to explain how Belle, best known for playing a cavegirl in 10,000 BC, dated, or is supposed to have once dated—we have trouble following the thread—his friend, an actor named Tom Sturridge. So you're supposed to have stolen her from your best friend, we ask, before you stole her from the other dude?

"From the Jonas brother, yeah," Pattinson says. "I'm completely out of control. It's funny, though, because I met her at her place the other day, and there's a security gate, and even the security woman—I guess she knows that Camilla lives there, and she was like, 'Oooh!' "

Okay, we say. So you're picking her up at her apartment?

"Like, once," he says. "But it's like—they always say 'A source said,' and I don't know a single person that could be a source."

But we've seen pictures. You guys were walking in Venice Beach, after lunch.

"That's the extent of it," Pattinson says. "I mean, Camilla's the nicest—she's a saint. And it's funny that she's being portrayed as this home wrecker. She's literally the most unlikely person to be a home wrecker. It's just ridiculous."

So it's a friendship, we ask him, that's been misinterpreted?

"I mean—yeah," he says. "I don't see people. I don't even have people's phone numbers. I almost don't want to have a girlfriend, in this environment."

This is maybe the most poorly executed denial we've ever heard. This is, in fact, how we would deny dating Camilla Belle if we wanted as many people as possible to believe that we were totally hitting that, while still coming off as an untruthful person. Either Pattinson can't lie, or he can't lie very well.

It's funny, because Pattinson worships Jack Nicholson, who's legendary for giving interviewers less than the time of day. And he loves Brando, citing a YouTube clip of the actor giving a characteristically performance-arty and uncooperative press conference in the mid-'60s. Brando could do that, of course, because he was Marlon fucking Brando. Brando could show up, burp the alphabet in front of a couple of Associated Press guys, and catch the next plane back to Tahiti. Pattinson understands that this isn't an option for him.

"The only way to establish any kind of mystique," he says, "is to completely shut up and never talk to anyone. And I'm contractually obligated not to shut up."

*****

Pattinson hasn't shot anything new since Twilight wrapped. He won't be in front of the camera again until this spring, when he starts shooting the next Twilight movie, New Moon, due out in November. But in the meantime, he'll show up as young Salvador Dalí in a period drama called Little Ashes, about the pre-fame bromance between Dalí, director Luis Buñuel, and poet Federico García Lorca.